Types of SSL Certificates and Their Uses
                     Types of SSL Certificates and Their Uses
Jenny Knight
Writes for smb-corner.com 
Small and Medium Business Corner & 
SMB Corner
SSL certificates are essential for a website to ensure the security and 
various other factors of a website. SSL certificates are of various types. They 
can be used for a website, based on the needs of the site. They are listed 
below.
Organization validated SSL certificates
These certificates validate the organizational information such as – name, 
state, city and country included in the certificate along with the domain 
ownership. The validation process is performed with a DNS or an email. 
Here, the owner is requested for proving the admin rights by confirming 
the mail that is sent to their registered email for the domain or else 
through configuration of DNS of the domain. Along with this, it also 
requires additional information for certifying the company’s identity. This 
process takes from just a few hours to a few days – because of the 
company’s validation process. The SSL certificate will display the company’s 
information.
Domain validated SSL certificates
This certificate will validate whether the domain is registered and the 
person with admin rights is aware of that; and accordingly the certificate is 
approved. The validation process for this type of SSL certificate is same as 
that of organization validated SSL certificates; and this takes just a few 
minutes to some hours. If the certificate is proved to be valid and signed by 
a trusted authority, the browser will indicate the secure HTTP connection.
Extended validated SSL certificates
This type of certificate requires the extended validation of the organization 
or business. It validates the information pertaining to the organization, 
domain ownership, and legal existence of the organization; and also 
validates that the business is aware of SSL certificate request and approves 
it. Documentation is necessary to certify the company’s identity. Also, a set 
of additional checks and steps are necessary to be made for the completion 
of the process. This process can take a few days to some weeks, due to the 
complexity of procedure involved in it. Such SSL certificates are generally 
identified with green address bar in the browser with the company’s name.
Single name SSL certificates
This type of certificates will help protecting single sub-domain or host 
name. These certificates includes the root name also.
Wildcard SSL certificates
Purchasing these certificates will protect the unlimited number of sub-
domains for a single-domain.
Multi-domain SSL certificates
With a single SSL certificate, you can protect different domains. You can 
also secure a combination of various sub-domains from different domains 
using this type of SSL certificates.
It is also crucial to be remembered that the number of secured domains 
and their validation levels don’t effect the security level of the SSL 
certificates.
These are various types of SSL certificates that you can use for a website, 
based on the requirements of your website.
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